Art-ology

In the bygone past finding replacement parts was easy, all the components including wiper blade were manufactured to be compatible with as many makes and models as car as possible. These days we live in the era of specialisation and one of the curses of over specialisation in my opinion is that the versatility of the car has been damaged. Every component these days, not including lots of wiper blade thank god, is made to work with only a very narrow make of car, if you open a car bonnet these days you will be accosted with a black box full of unknown circuitry and proprietary appliances. One of the large downsides with this state of affairs is that people can no longer maintain their own automobiles without purchasing special parts and trained labour from the supplier. This means that the customer is locked into buying only the most expensive parts available and are metaphorically held hostage by the brand. This means they can cost whatever they like and often do, fortunately with some bits such as wiper blades you can still find interchangeable models which will work on all types of automobile.

The benefits of this arrangement to the supplier include maximising profits and giving the vehicle a uniform look and feel, in terms of internal dashboards and light fittings however in some instances this is completely unnecessary. For example if your supplier ever tells you to get replacement wiper blades only from them this is patently absurd. The aim of all this is for suppliers to keep the consumer locked into buying over priced replacement components from only them but this doesn’t have to be the case for the informed consumer. Take replacement wiper blades for instance, go online and perform a quick search, you will find many suppliers offering windscreen wipers at a fraction of the price of dealerships.

The is all thanks to the advent of the web which has alered the way people buy stuff like wipers and put the power back into the hands of the buyer rather than the supplier who like to get people hooked and then jack up the cost like a common drug dealer. The best thing about the www besides the ease of shopping for your wipers from home is that the international scope of the competition has forced costs down to very reasonable levels and the consumer can connect with some really good deals. I think that the way we are going now the hope of helping car manufactures to produce standardised parts is a lost cause but perhaps with the ongoing of climate change and global warming the international community will be forced to do something and force producers of cars and wipers to make their engineering more compatible and to a stricter spec in order to stop emissions. In doing so the components including wipers could all be made much more adequately and quickly and save on materials and energy, maybe in the remote future this will be a possibility but for now us consumers just have to grin and bear it as the car manufacturers run rough shod over our wallets.